Just a few of my personal observations from the game

Nov 6, 2023, 2:44 PM

Pros:

-1st half play calling was overall pretty legit. Good use of run, not too much asked of Cade, decision wise. Passes were mostly quick outs and slants where he's quite good getting it into a tight window.

-Blocking improved via somewhat simplified blocking scheme.

- Mafah. Gotdang. Mafah. The dude just has vision that our other backs don't have to find the slim holes that our line affords, and he isn't going down on first contact much. Even a gang tackle on the guy is a 4 yard fall forward as often as not. I'm not saying ditch Ship, but God I hope it's Mafah primary and Ship spelling him some and being used in more niche situations. Putting only my psychiatrist's hat, the offense played a lot more composed and cohesive as well. Was that because someone wasn't there freaking out yelling at anyone in earshot after every play? I dunno, but I'm just sayin.

-Special teams - thing of beauty by Swanson. Beautiful. Even Cade's punt option was beautiful. And we joke about the kid a lot, but kudos to Hamp Greene for doing real yeoman's work returning punts.

-Defense - Pork Chop and the boys have done enough to win every game this season, and that continued and then some.

Cons but to avoid negativity, APM, I'll call them "opportunities"

-Once again, in the 2nd half, very early, we went to our "prevent offense".

- Cade still needs more situational awareness, and I suppose that's only going to come from experience. One example is at the end of the game, when a field goal would have put the game away, on 2nd down he tries to scramble and takes a massive sack that made getting us into field goal range on the ensuing 3rd down play almost impossible. Could have easily thrown away but the "hero" mentality from high school is proving hard to kill.

- WR's. I said going into the game that it is what it is, and it still is. We just have to call plays to what they can handle. Troy isn't going to adjust to a 40 yard contested outside shoulder throw the way Nuk did.

- Wil we ever go after punts when an opponent is deep in their territory? Ever?

-2 minute drill. Horrree shid. We looked like a monkey humping a football trying to move the ball quickly at the end of the first half. It was awful. If it comes down to us needing to move the ball 80 yards at the end of a a game in 1:45, I'm not confident, and it's not helped that we seem to randomly burn at least two needless timeouts in each half.

I'm so happy we beat ND. I hate ND. Easily neck and neck for my #2 most hated program spot w/ tOSU behind the leg humpers. Needed that win, needed to go in dry, needed to hit em in the mouth on our home field the same way they did to us last year. Loved it.

But why's everyone coming after anyone who had any criticism of how this team's playing like this is the 2023 version of the Salem witch trials?

A) We're 5-4
II) We scored 0 points in the 4th quarter, again.

We had more positives than negatives. About as many as you'll have with a 5-4 team.
- We held on to the W thanks in part to a fantastically called second half by Pit Viper wearin not GAF bout his diet pork chop. Good #### brother.
- We actually won the field possession battle. Finally. JMFC our special teams finally showed up to play.
- We won the turnover battle. Hallelujah...FINALLY.
- We had ZERO penalties. That's wild to me. If we were undefeated or something, looking at a shot to get into the CFP, I'd say this was rigged, lol. No one plays a perfect game. But hey, we needed a GD break so thank whoever you prayed to that we finally got one.
- Clearly we've been featuring the wrong back, and not coaching our previous back to run with patience required for a zone blocking scheme.
- We FINALLY got pressure on a QB. The best one we'll face all year, with the best OL, is the only one we've got pressure on. I have no idea how this makes sense but gahlee I'll take it.

These are improvements we needed to see from camp to week 1, then week 1 to week 2, and be refined week 2 to week 3. Here we are going into Week 10 celebrating being able to (most of the time) get the snap, hand it off, and get 3 or 4 yards. Or catching the ball. Hell I come out of my chair when we make a catch these days, so don't tell me bout no appreciation.

Defensively, outside of maybe 2 drives, best called game of the year, hands down. I thought after the first drive we were about to get our azzholez pushed in. We were able to slow the run down enough to get a lead, and then at that point they had to throw it. Now, if I'm an ND fan, I'm Tyler level pissed off at my OC for not coming back to the run game in the 4th Q haha. But hey, like I posted during the game, nice to see another coaching staff coach their way out of a ball game for a change.

I loved some of the DL personnel groupings that I don't remember seeing a lot of this year. At one point I saw 12, 3, 11, 13, and 19 on the field. 19 is an animal and idk wheredafuq he been. Dude was swallowing domer lineman like DSP swallowing dabo's baby juice.

Pork Chop's gotta stop going into prevent defense early in the second half. Stop it. It killed us against FSU, it killed us against Miami, and it bout killed us Saturday. Run down hill and blow their ############# #### up.

Offensively, I still can't fathom what we do during the week. I'm sorry. I can be happy we won and still think we could get this level of production out of a coaching staff w/ half the price tag. I appreciated the shift in the game plan to get the ball out of 2s hands quick. Obviously the differentiator for us was establishing a run game. And we took way more quick pass hits than screen hits for a change. Only had 1 critical sack that stood out to me. All that was nice to see.

- I don't think we've ever practiced a 2 minute drill. Would've been a nail in the coffin to get 6 going into the half there, or add to our cushion and get 3. What we did was gutless, IMO.

- I loved the 2 TE set we were running, but it was pretty obvious where the ball was going - that's where ever 11 was motioning. To get away from this, don't take 11 out of the game and have 13 block instead, maybe just have 2 pull a couple lol. Or keep coming back to the pop slants over the middle.

- OL had their best game, again - oddly, against one of the better front 7s we'll see all year. Personnel grouping seems to be a good combo. We still can't block a twist. I'll give benefit of the doubt to the young guys and let em correct that going into next 2 weeks (again, week 2 or 3 improvement). We did a good job scheming around our OL which is how we've done it for years.

- We need to get 6 the ball more. I couldn't tell if he was getting doubled or what, but he needs more targets and touches. 10 and 80 are getting better and better - they come back to the football. FINALLY. Definitely miss 0. I'd like to see someone light a fire under 8s ### b/c I know he has it and is an absolute stud. He just has to want it.

- We substitute too much on Offense. When we have personnel matchups we want, we need to exploit them and keep the defensive unit on the field w/ tempo. Maybe that's a year 2 installment, lol, but that was frustrating the hell out of me Saturday watching that ref just let ND sub 5 or 6 times a drive.

We continue to get stonewalled late in games. Part of it seems like we get too cute on tendency breakers, part of it seems like we've blown our load and have nothing else? Idk, it's wild. Part of it also just Dabo's mindset of being conservative, so we'll have to live with it to some degree.

But this is why we couldn't put FSU away, it's why we couldn't put Miami away, and it's why Pork Chop had to bail us out Saturday. We've got to step on teams' throats and finish games. Big leads help your defense more than anything. One possession games late terrify the crap outta me b/c we can't give ourselves a cushion.

It's always easier to watch tape after a win. I've had way, way, way worse film sessions after a W than I have after an L. If you play sound football and get beat, that's part of the game. You're certainly not going to win every rep, and you aren't going to win every game either.

If you play mistake ridden football, but hang onto the W, be thankful you did enough to win but fix the #### and clean it up.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down